Scaredy fat cat

Eat just 1470 calories a day, on average, for the rest of my life?
That´s exactly the challenge that Allan of Almost Gastric Bypass has been putting out for everyone to try. And it´s the right thing to do if I want to test my ability to get to goal and keep the weight off.
Eat what you will be able to eat at your goal weight and not gain.
While Allan´s peculiar brand of encouragement and criticism may not appeal to everybody ( he tends to be a bit caustic sometimes, and his penchant for toilet stories can be somewhat disgusting), the logic behind his challenge is unassailable.
A person who eats what his or her ideal-weighted body would need, in terms of calories, will do two things: first, he/she will lose the weight that separates him/her from their ideal weight, and, once that has been reached, he/she will be able to maintain that weight without further effort. As long as they stick to the caloric limit that comes with their ideal weight.
As soon as you go above that limit, regains ensue.
I guess all of us have, at one time or another, fallen prey to the assumption that you can lose weight, and then return to eating the way you did when you were fat. Guess what, if you do, you will be fat again.
And that´s what  powers the dieting roller coaster many of us have been on for a long while.

But- it´s scary looking at those numbers. 1470 calories- that´s about one supersized burger with fries and soda, or that infamous onion blossom at a certain restaurant chain. Or less than three bars of chocolate, or one package of ice cream. Or one full plate of pancakes with syrup poured over them.
I have been fat for most of my grown-up life, and for as long, these things were what I considered to be one meal of the day, or even a snack, which of course was just one of at least three meals and extra snacks. To maintain my top weight, I had to eat around 3000 calories a day. Someone who is bigger needs even more.
What I also believed I needed was the perennially overflowing fridge. Sausages, big blocks of cheese, pudding. There for me whenever I felt the slightest twinge of- no, not hunger. I was never hungry, simply because I was eating almost continually. What propelled me in the direction of the fridge was anything but hunger. I had, actually, lost all sense of hunger or satiety. Eating was what I did whenever my stomach was anything but full, and I stopped eating when I had reached the physical limits of what I could stuff  into my belly and not explode.
These days, when I open my refrigerator, I can, at one glance, take inventory of everything that is in there.
Had it ever been that empty-looking while I was fat, I´d have gone shopping for refills immediately because I was scared of not having anything to eat.
I have been relearning what it feels like to be hungry. I have relearned that it´s not the end of the world if I feel hungry. And I have learned that eating when hungry means that there really is a point where I can stop eating, long before that point of being stuffed to the limits. It´s called satiety.
It´s also what to me used to be the signal, not to stop eating, but rather, to start eating because below it came the dreaded feeling of hunger.
If I stay below those 1470 calories at the weight I have now, there´s always a slight twinge of hunger in between meals. That´s perfectly natural, because the remaining extra pounds are not provided for at that intake.
But it´s a good kind of hunger, because it means that those extra pounds are in the process of leaving my body.
Yes, it´s scary to look at 1470 calories´worth of food and say: "That´s what I may eat for the rest of my life", because with this thought comes the fear of being constantly hungry for the rest of my life.
Which is wrong.
Those 1470 calories are what my body will need at goal weight. No more, no less. And that means that if I eat like that at goal, it will be sufficient.
With every pound I lose, the hunger pangs get smaller.

And the scaredy fat cat inside me who still thinks that one must feel stuffed before one has eaten enough?
He´ll probably always be there. But he may never again take over control. I´ve come too far to let him.


Julia